Petronas set to test market with $4bn IPO

Petronas Chemicals is looking to raise as much as $4bn (£2.5bn) in a Malaysian initial public offering, exceeding earlier estimates of over $2bn as it hopes to tap on strong global investor demand for Asian stocks.

Asian capital markets are seeing a flurry of multi-billion deals, helped by a flood of liquidity, low interest rates and strong economic growth.

The IPO for Petronas Chemicals, owned by Malaysian state oil giant Petronas, could become the largest share offering in the country, exceeding Maxis’s $3.3bn listing last year.

It follows Singapore wealth fund GIC's logistic unit’s $3bn IPO and may overlap with American International Group’s planned listing of its Asian life insurance business AIA in a deal worth over $15bn.

“This is a big surprise and it comes at a time when there is heated interest for oil and gas stocks,” said Danny Wong, chief executive of Acera Capital, which manages about 400m Malaysia ringgit (£81.6m) in funds. “Even though foreign investors are not very big on Malaysia, this IPO could spark more interest and even then I foresee a lot of local institutional players going for this latest proxy of Petronas.”